Hybrid Teams and Remote Collaboration Challenges

As the work-from-home trend has evolved, small to midsized businesses (SMBs) have had to scramble to keep up with collaboration technology. Within that environment, companies have to continually push to find the best ways to keep their remote teams productive and collaborative. Fortunately, there are tools and techniques that can help.

How Can Companies Choose the Best Collaboration Technology for Their Needs?

Managers must address several aspects of digital collaboration before they can make decisions about how to optimize their hybrid teams:

• Physical and Geographical distance — Where is everyone located? Are they in different time zones?
  • Many companies have remote-access employees located in different states, countries and time zones. How does this affect team collaboration?
• Operational Distance — How large is the team? Does it have overlapping availability? What is the specific expertise of each team member?
  • The size and geographical distribution of a workforce can impact availability. Also, having unnecessary teammates in an online meeting is a waste of human resources. Companies need the right people in the right meetings. How can SMBs structure remote digital collaboration to bring the most benefit to hybrid teams and the company?
• Affinity Distance — How much does corporate culture bind the team together? Do teammates know each other well enough that there’s a high degree of trust? Do the individuals have a clear understanding of the team goals and what they bring to the collaboration?
  • Maintaining team focus, trust and loyalty can be challenging in a remote-access environment. However, in a face-to-face office setting, co-workers gain trust through physical camaraderie and team-driven pursuit of business goals.

Fortunately, the necessity for successful remote-access collaboration has spawned new platforms that help nurture a productive online team environment via digital collaboration. These are especially good for small to midsized businesses because they provide shared “hubs” for the resources, files and collaborative tools teams need to work together and share ideas.

Q: How often should teams communicate in a remote setup?

A: There’s no one-size-fits-all, but best practice includes:

• Daily or weekly stand-ups.
• Regular check-ins between managers and team members.
• Synced updates via shared docs or channels.

Business owners are haunted by the image of team members sitting at home in their pajamas, stopping for frequent coffee breaks and working on personal business. Establishing boundaries and expectations for regular work hours is a priority for successful remote collaboration. Some of these include:

• Establish a Work Schedule (for full-time employees) — Staff availability during the established workday is crucial to maintaining continuity. All remote employees must treat the day as if they are still in an office surrounded by others. Expectations of regular availability during the day should be standardized.
• Account for Different Time Zones — Make accommodations for establishing timely communication across team members living in different time zones from the start. A 24-hour turnaround time for replies to team questions can slow down a project.
• Assign Tasks and Set Realistic Goals — Most people are goal-driven, and they understand the importance of meeting deadlines. Goals and deadlines will help keep collaborative teams focused and accountable.
• Establish Regular Online Meetings — Because scheduling meetings to match individual availabilities has always been challenging, it is essential to have regular online meetings. By having regularly scheduled meetings, team members will have the time blocked out in advance and be less likely to have calendar conflicts. In addition, monthly, weekly and brief morning meetings can nurture digital collaboration.
• Create Live Chat Opportunities — By enabling a “Live Chat” function, teams can ask questions and share ideas in real-time while working on projects with their teammates. Live Chat can be text-based or video-based, as preferred.
• Find Compelling Ways to Track Progress —A visual method for tracking individual and overall team progress lets everyone know where a project stands at all times so they will not feel like they are working in a vacuum.
• Use Differing Time Zones Effectively — If a team is spread through several time zones, set a collaboration protocol so that if one employee is done for the day, someone in another time zone can continue the work. This approach will help meet tight project deadlines.

Q: How do I keep everyone on remote teams aligned and informed?

A: Use shared dashboards, meeting notes, and centralized documentation (e.g., Notion, Confluence). Record key meetings and create a “single source of truth” for ongoing projects.

What Are the Main Collaboration Platforms for Remote Teams?

Four virtual collaboration technologies dominate the market: Teams, Slack, Zoom and Google Meet. Here’s a quick look at each, including their strengths and limitations.

Microsoft Teams: It’s an all-in-one platform that combines chat, video conferencing and file sharing.

• Strengths: Teams integrates easily with Word, Excel, Outlook, and SharePoint and offers robust security and admin controls. It also has chat threads and channels arranged by team or project that remain active outside conferencing.
• Limitations: There’s often a steep learning curve or adjustment period, as it can feel complex or cluttered for new users. It’s also, obviously, better suited for SMBs that are already using Microsoft products.

Slack: This popular messaging app emphasizes channels, integrations and real-time communication that’s more immediate and easier to use in groups than email.

• Strengths: Slack has a simple and intuitive interface that allows for excellent real-time collaboration and informal communication. The platform is also highly customizable, with thousands of third-party app integrations.
• Limitations: The video- and audio-conferencing features don’t compare favorably to Zoom or Teams, and the ease of communication can make the flow of messages overwhelming as channels proliferate.

Zoom: It’s the leading video-conferencing tool, and it also offers chat, whiteboarding and webinar hosting.

• Strengths: It’s easy to use and offers high-quality video and sound with stable performance as well as breakout rooms, screen sharing, and recording features.
• Limitations: It doesn’t offer ongoing, off-video communication and has limited file-sharing and project management features. Also, there have been serious security and privacy issues with Zoom meetings.

Google Workspace: After a brief tutorial, it’s an easy-to-use cloud-based conferencing option that’s also part of the Google suite, including Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Meet and Chat.

• Strengths: The cost-effective, integrated ecosystem offers streaming video and audio with real-time collaboration on documents and spreadsheets.
• Limitations: Chat and Meet offer fewer features than some other options with fewer built-in tools.

Overall Assessment:

No single platform is perfect. Most teams use a combination. The right choice depends on your company’s size, tools ecosystem, communication style (real-time vs async), and security needs.

Considering all the collaboration technology options and the importance of remote connection in keeping hybrid teams working at peak efficiency, don’t hesitate to call a professional IT service provider for guidance.

Q: How can I build trust and prevent misunderstandings during remote meetings?

A: Be responsive, transparent, and respectful of tone. Assume good intent, provide context in messages, and make time for casual conversations to build rapport.

Key Takeaways for Remote Collaboration Technology

Having the right technology for your team can improve remote team productivity. Clunky technology that does not perform as needed will frustrate employees and impede workflow. New tech products are introduced each year, and some existing tech products develop security or privacy issues. Check with your IT service provider for the latest recommendations of secure and private options. Have a professional provider install the product on company devices, configure settings for security and train your team on how to use it.